Need help ASAP

[TrpnBils]

Hi. The following question is not mine.

Some kid got ahold of me over AIM tonight asking me if I could help him out because his corn won't eat. I told him a couple times to come to this forum (which is where he got my AIM name anyway I'm guessing) and search the threads because I don't even have my snake yet and all I know is what I've read.

But he won't. And he keeps IM'ing me. He's not taking my advice to come here, but I don't want his snake to die, so I'm gonna ask you guys what's up. I really wish the chat room was working!

Anyway, he's had it 2 weeks, it's 14" long, it's shed already with him, and it ate last Tuesday when he took it back to the pet store where he got it (the guy there had to feed it for whatever reason...I dunno). He said it hasn't gone to the bathroom since then. I thought he just may have missed it because of the substrate...so I asked him what substrate he was using. He didn't know what I meant by "substrate" (or "viv" or the concept of warm and cool sides of the tank he's got it in, and he didn't know what I meant when I asked him if he had hides in the tank), so he obviously didn't do any research before he got this thing. Aside from that making me mad, the snake is taking the brunt of it. After he talked to me the first time today, he went back to the pet shop and the guy told him to soak it to get it to go to the bathroom. He came back and after he started soaking it, he asked me how long to soak it for and how to keep it from trying to get away (this is after he already had the snake in the water). I told him to make sure the water wasn't too hot or too cold.

"Oh, it's not, it's about the same temperature of water I take a shower in"

um, no....I told him to cool it down to room temp first.

Anyway, he is talking to me again right now and he said it didn't go. I told him to search these forums for suggestions, but he hasn't. Do you guys have any other suggestions??? His temps are 80/70 from what he told me. This is really frustrating for me because he won't just come here and look around for the dozens of threads similar to his problem. I don't want to give him bad advice and I don't want to just blow him off and have his snake die because who knows what he's got going on over there....

Help please!

[CAV]

My initial recommendation is to take the snake out of the water, put it back into the enclosure, and completely leave it alone for a week to 10 day. That is way to much maving and handling for a young snake.

[oreo1700]

i hagree with cav. just give the snake a hide box and leave it alone. it sounds like the kid is torchuring it.

[TrpnBils]

i hagree with cav. just give the snake a hide box and leave it alone. it sounds like the kid is torchuring it.
Exactly what I thought... it turns out that he did have 1 hide (which he said covered both warm and cool sides, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming it just spans the whole tank). He never heard of "hide" though...just "box".

[Bluebeard]

see if you can get ahold of his parents and see if they would read up on it? or they can get him to read up on cornsnakes. he sounds like he needs alittle bit of perental advisery.

[TrpnBils]

see if you can get ahold of his parents and see if they would read up on it? or they can get him to read up on cornsnakes. he sounds like he needs alittle bit of perental advisery.
Trust me, I'd like to.. That's what I kept thinking last night. I'm not even sure how old he is, but from the way he was talking I'm guessing around 10 or 12, so you're right, that is more of a parental problem for letting him GET the snake without anybody knowing anything about it. Like I'm glad he at least came to somebody for help, but it sorta made me mad because I've been reading up on this for 8 months now because I didn't want to go into it blind. I would think if you're not going to put the effort into knowing anything about an animal with different needs then you're used to (let's face it, it's not a dog or something), then it's not worth getting because it's going to cause stress for you and the snake.

[MegF.]

It's great that you are taking the time to learn about your future pet Jeff. I'm sure you'll have healthy and happy snakes. Unfortunately, you also will learn that there are a lot of people out there who could care less about any animal, to say nothing about a snake. It doesn't sound like his parents are all that concerned about the health of the animal, but you could certainly give it a try to find out if they even know better. There are bunches of people who are well meaning, but ignorant.